Another Man's Child

The words sounded so final.

She sat up, facing him. “Marcus? What’s wrong?” Had something terrible happened that he hadn’t told her about? Something more than George Blake’s coming-of-age? She wanted to turn the light back on, to see his expression more clearly than the moonlight coming through the window allowed, but fear held her paralyzed.

“We can’t go on this way, Lis.”

She wasn’t ready. “What way? What are you talking about?”

“Us. Our lives. Both of us working ourselves to death, neither of us happy.”

Lisa had to touch him, to draw her strength from him, just as she always did when life looked as if it was going to be more than she could bear. “I love you,” she said, putting her hand on his thigh, soaking up his warmth.

“And I love you.” His hand covered hers, his fingers wrapping around her knuckles. “But don’t you sometimes wonder what your life would be like with someone else? Honestly?”

Lisa snatched her hand away, attacked by a vision of that lipstick on his shirt collar. Did he think his life would be better with someone else? That his need to fill his empty house with a passel of children would just vanish?

“No,” she finally said slowly, firmly. “I’ve known since the moment we met that you were the only one for me.” There was no room for pride in the desperation she was feeling; maybe that would come later, but for now she wasn’t going to give up on all that they were together without a fight.

“But back then, we thought I could give you everything,” he said. “And while I can still provide your creature comforts, we’ve got to face the fact that I’ll never be able to give you the one thing you want most to have.”

Relief flooded through her; another woman wasn’t the problem. “You’re wrong, Marcus,” she said softly, rubbing her hand along his thigh again. “You are the one thing I want most to have. You always have been. That hasn’t changed. And it never will.”

With a muffled oath Marcus stood up and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. “We can’t keep avoiding the issue here, Lisa. You can’t tell me you’re happy, that you’ve been happy these past months. I know you too well. And I can’t continue to get up at dawn every morning to avoid the sadness I know I’m going to see in your eyes.”

Lisa sat frozen. Feeling nothing. “What are you suggesting?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, his frustration spilling over into the room he paced. “I don’t know what to suggest, or I’d have done something long before now. It looks to me like we’ve tried everything there is to try, Lis. And it’s just not working. Maybe it’s time to face the fact that there’s nothing to do, nothing that will make this better for both of us. Hell, I didn’t want to get into this tonight” He strode over to the window, a lion caged.

“Are you telling me you want a divorce?” she asked. She’d never felt so numb.

“No! Yes. I don’t know, Lis.” He turned to look at her, his blue gaze piercing. “How do you know when it’s over?”

Somehow she held his gaze without flinching. “I’m not sure. I never thought it would be.”

“Every time I look at you, I know I’ve failed you,” he said, finally coming back to sit on the edge of the bed beside her.

She cupped his face. “Oh, no, Marcus. Never. Never have you failed me. Not in any way that matters. What’s happened is not your fault.”

He took her hands from his face, then held one on his leg between both of his. “It’s not just my sterility, Lis.” He tapped their hands against his thigh, accenting each word. “It’s the rest of it, too. My inability to consider any of your options. I wanted to. God knows I’ve tried to consider adoption, but I just can’t get past the rage I feel every time I think about your having to just make do. I just can’t accept a lifetime of pretending, not for me, but especially not for you.”

“Adopting a child wouldn’t be pretending. We’d be his real parents, Marcus. He’d belong to us, just like we belong to each other.”

“You can try to make it sound pretty, Lis, but it wouldn’t be the same as having a baby come from your own body, feeling your belly swell with his growth, nursing him. Those are the things I’d be denying you. Things I know you want so badly that not having them makes you cry.” He paused. “Things you’re perfectly capable of having with someone else.”

Lisa cursed all those times she and Marcus had dreamed aloud together about the family they’d have, cursed the intimate longings she’d confessed to him. “I only wanted those things with you, Marcus, not with anybody else. It wouldn’t mean anything with anybody else.”

He stood up again. “Of course, you think that now, honey, because you have no idea who might be out there. You haven’t looked. But how long do you think it will be before you start to wonder? How long before these empty rooms start getting to you like they’re getting to me?”

Telling herself to stand, to be strong, Lisa slid off the bed and faced the man she couldn’t live without.

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nbsp; “Can you tell me, honestly, that you want your freedom?” she asked. “That this…this thing between us has killed your love for me?”

She could see his self-deprecating smile even as he hooked his hand around her neck and pulled her to him. “Sometimes I wish it had, honey. It would be much easier to leave you to the life you deserve if I didn’t love you so damn much. But I guess you can add selfishness to my list of shortcomings, because, God help me, so far I can’t seem to walk out that door.”

The knot in Lisa’s stomach loosened a little. “Thank God,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears, which overflowed and spilled down her cheeks, wetting his chest.

He crushed her to him and held her tight. “If I were any kind of man, I’d let you go. I’d free you to find someone else.” The words sounded as if they were being dragged from him.